If Pressure Vessels Could Talk

I recall we had to put an emergency patient inside a wet chamber that was only half cleaned Saturday AM. Our team was already there with the air tank charged up to treat him. We finished the cleaning after the patient was treated and discharged for outpatient follow-up. Nobody had to make an extra weekend trip, and the employees "cleaned up "by getting extra emergency overtime hours. Unfortunately, the new code fireproof paint quickly chipped and peeled with the full force of the fire hose power washer aimed directly at the stubborn stains. 

The fresh whitewash lasted just one year. The paint was guaranteed, but not the labor. And I put in a requisition for a gallon of color-matched touch-ups, which never materialized. I had to resort to Plan B and kept chipping away to return to the original base coat that would have lasted another 50 years. That was someone else's bright idea to whitewash the inside! I disagreed with it, but it was part of the omnibus chamber upgrade bill that gave us a reliable exact replacement rebuilt Joy Compressor for just $20k. It had been sitting in a warehouse unused after another white elephant multi-chamber facility went belly up. We picked it up as a fire sale. The whitewash looked great while it lasted before repeated pressure/ humidity heat cycles which started taking their toll on the refresh top coat like the parched floor of Death Valley in the summer heat. 

You win some, you lose some. 

The French Columnist